Compliance1 July 20266 min read
Website accessibility audit: the DIY walkthrough before you pay for one
An hour, no tools budget, and a keyboard: how to find the accessibility failures that matter — for EAA compliance and for every user squinting at a phone.
You can find most of your website’s serious accessibility failures in about an hour, without paid tools: run an automated scan, then walk your money pages with a keyboard, a screen reader and your phone. With the European Accessibility Act now enforced and first lawsuits running, this DIY pass tells you whether you have a gap — and how urgent the professional audit is.
Step 1: the automated scan (10 minutes)
Run Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools) or the free WAVE extension on your homepage, a service or product page, and the contact or checkout flow. Automated tools catch roughly a third of real issues — missing alt texts, contrast failures, unlabeled form fields — and produce the fix list a developer can start on today. A clean automated pass means little; a dirty one means certain problems.
Step 2: the keyboard walk (20 minutes)
- Put the mouse away. Tab through each key page: can you reach every link, button, menu and form field?
- Is it always visible where you are? A missing focus outline strands keyboard users instantly.
- Can you operate the mobile menu, any modal or cookie banner — and escape them again?
- Can you complete the actual money action: submit the form, finish the checkout? If not, you are losing users and standing on thin legal ice.
Step 3: screen reader and phone (20 minutes)
Turn on the built-in screen reader (VoiceOver on Mac and iPhone, Narrator on Windows) and listen to your homepage: do headings read as a sensible outline? Do images convey meaning or filename gibberish? Does the form announce what each field wants? Then the phone checks: text readable without zooming, tap targets that fit a thumb, contrast that survives sunlight. This is not an edge case — it is your mobile majority on a bright day.
What to do with the findings
Triage in three buckets: blockers on money paths (fix this sprint), systematic issues like contrast and focus styles (fix in the design system, once, properly), and structural problems the walkthrough only hints at — those justify the professional WCAG 2.1 AA audit, now with a scoped shopping list instead of a blank cheque. And write down the date and findings: documented, ongoing effort is exactly what enforcement authorities ask to see first.
An hour with a keyboard finds the failures your best customers meet every day and never report — they just leave.
Frequently asked questions
Is a DIY pass enough for EAA compliance?
No — compliance means WCAG 2.1 AA, verified properly, plus an accessibility statement. The DIY pass is the honest first step: it sizes the gap, fixes the obvious, and makes the professional audit cheaper and better-targeted.
Will an accessibility overlay widget fix what I find?
No. Overlays paint over inaccessible markup, are widely criticized by the accessibility community, and have not shielded companies from legal action. Every fix that matters happens in the code.
Does fixing accessibility help anything besides compliance?
Almost everything: semantic markup that search and AI engines parse better, forms that convert better for everyone, contrast and speed that help every phone user. Accessibility work is UX and SEO work under a legal deadline.
Written by the iweb.eu studio — twelve years of building fast websites, sharp brands and search visibility. Talk to us about your project.